Another era for Miss Seychelles |11 January 2020

A scene from a past Miss Seychelles pageant. The event has been re-launched under the new name ‘Miss Seychelles the National Pageant’

The Miss Seychelles pageant, one of the first ever beauty contests in Seychelles, will be coming back for the third time under its new name ‘Miss Seychelles the National Pageant’.

This time around the pageant will be organised by the Beauty Empowerment Seychelles (BES), a newly formed organisation.

To get details of the beauty contest Seychelles NATION had a chat with the chairperson of BES, Stephanie Duval.

“The absence of Miss Seychelles over the last 3 years is one of the main reasons why we have decided to bring back the pageant,” said Ms Duval.

She added that empowerment of the contestants is the main aim of the competition.

“We want to empower them so that they can empower those around them and help make positive changes in their respective communities. All activities are centred on that. People may think it is cliché but gender equality (SDG5) rests on the empowerment of women and girls,” remarked the chairperson.

Stephanie also noted that the pageant is different from the previous ones because training has been carefully structured and will be conducted by the most respected people in the relevant fields.

She added that “contestants will leave the pageant enlightened and enabled to make their dreams come true. The journey will be an unbelievable one for the contestants as there is a freshness of ideas that will certainly make this pageant stand out”.

Unlike past pageants where a new girl was crowned every year, this time around the competition will be held every two years.

Once the winner is crowned she will be given the platform to be involved in charitable projects among other activities and will be recognised nationally and internationally as the nation’s Miss Seychelles.

She will also be prepared to compete internationally where she will be participating in Miss World and other international competitions. Funding will hopefully come from the private sector as well as the government.

The organising committee also noted that both the private sector, government and relevant stakeholders have been approached and are still being approached for financial support. Cinea is among the relevant stakeholders the organisation hopes to approach and discuss possibilities of its involvement.

Ms Duval noted that the organisation certainly hopes that Cinea would support this event.

Potential contestants can already begin the application process and the chairperson of BES added that they will be looking for girls with enthusiasm, personality, intelligence, beauty, talent and authenticity among other qualities.

Contestants are required to fill in and submit the registration forms which will be followed by an audition to select the finalists.

“If all goes well the pageant will be held in June 2020 and the public can expect to see a super progressive behind-the-scene team and as for the contestants, the finest that Seychelles has to offer in terms of personality, beauty and brains. The finale will probably go down in our nation’s history as the event you could have not missed,” said Ms Duval.

Potential contestants can email secretariat.seychalles@gmail.com or call 2609864 to register. A meeting about Miss Seychelles the National Pageant will be held at 5pm on Wednesday January 15, 2020 at the National Arts Council (Nac) for potential contestants to attend.

And for any updates follow the official page on Facebook- Miss Seychelles the National Pageant and Instagram - missseychellesnationalpageant

Christophe Zialor